cookbooks

Homemade Pizza

April 25, 2013

I’ve always been a little disappointed in homemade pizza. Let’s face it, unless you have your own wood-fired oven, which I most certainly don’t, it’s hard to make anything approaching a real Neapolitan-style pie, with that charred, chewy-crisp crust, perfectly puffed around the perimeter and thin (but never gooey) in the middle. I sometimes make [...]

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Q&A With Olio2go’s Luanne Savino O’Loughlin ~ and a Book Signing in Fairfax

September 18, 2012

I’m pretty sure I have more olive oil than blood running through my veins. I cook with it and consume it every day; in fact, it is in the biscotto on which I am munching at this very moment. And yet I find the whole subject of olive oil confusing, not to mention disheartening these [...]

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Q & A with Giuliano Hazan and a Recipe for Cold Minestrone with Rice

July 3, 2012

I feel a certain kinship with Giuliano Hazan. I do not have a famous cookbook author for a mother. But Marcella Hazan and my mom are contemporaries, both born and raised in pre-World War II Italy. And while Marcella Hazan is from Emilia-Romagna and my mother from Abruzzo, both grew up in communities along [...]

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Spring in Tuscany: Giulia Scarpaleggia

March 27, 2012

Giulia Scarpaleggia of Juls’ Kitchen I had such a lovely time visiting with Frances Mayes, that I have decided to extend my virtual soggiorno in Tuscany for another week. Today I am dropping in on Giulia Scarpaleggia, author of Le Ricette di Mia Nonna (My Grandma’s Recipes) and of the Italian food blog Juls’ Kitchen. Although [...]

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Dicembre Dolce: La Cicerchiata

December 20, 2011

Fabulous photo by France Ruffenach for Chronicle Books Fried dough pellets glued together with honey to form a ring. That, in essence, is la cicerchiata, a traditional dessert from Italy’s Abruzzo region. There is nothing subtle or sophisticated about it. And yet, it is impossible to resist. Here is what will happen if you set [...]

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Bar Nuts

November 21, 2011

I inherited my passion for cooking from my mom. But my dad is the one who got me hooked on cookbooks. For a few years in the 1990s, my dad gave me a cookbook every Christmas. I do not know what precipitated this tradition (my mom was always the holiday shopper in the house). And [...]

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Ciao, Rustic Italian!

October 30, 2011

Meet my latest cookbook, Williams-Sonoma Rustic Italian: Simple, Authentic Recipes for Everyday Cooking. It has just hit the shelves at Williams-Sonoma stores, and will be available on Amazon as of December 6. Among other things, the book has one of those hip, cushioned, jacket-less covers that we’ve been seeing more of lately (aesthetically pleasing but [...]

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The Family Dish: Coffee-Spiked Banana Bread

October 6, 2011

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post’s All We Can Eat Blog) The bananas in the fruit bowl always seem to ripen faster than we can eat them. Personally, I like a slightly overripe banana, one with lots of brown speckles on the skin. But once the ratio of yellow to speckle tips in [...]

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“Basic to Brilliant” Sweet Potato Spoonbread

October 3, 2011

(Photo by Hélène Dujardin from Basic to Brilliant, Y’All) I still remember the first time I came across a recipe for spoonbread, in one of my mother’s old cookbooks. She had a small, diverse collection, and as a girl I enjoyed paging through them, especially a small, spiral-bound book called The Savannah Cookbook. It was [...]

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Tangy Carrots, Deviled Eggs, and a Celebration of Southern-Latino Cuisine

September 26, 2011

You probably have a bag of carrots in your refrigerator. I do. I always do. Carrots are the workhorses of the vegetable world. Dependable. Right there in the crisper should you need one or two to sweeten your tomato sauce, or to flavor a batch of chicken broth, or to shred into a tossed salad. [...]

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